Dubai International airport retained its position as the world’s number one hub for international passengers by registering annual traffic of more than 78 million in 2015, according to its operator Dubai Airports today.

In 2014, Dubai airport overtook London’s Heathrow to become the world’s busiest airport. In 2015, Heathrow handled 69.76 million international passengers.

Boosted by the growth of some 100 airlines that connect Dubai International to more than 240 destinations around the world, most notably Emirates and flydubai, annual passenger traffic at DXB surged 10.7 per cent to reach a record 78.01 million passengers in 2015 compared to 70.47 million recorded during 2014.

Passenger numbers in December 2015 totaled to 7.05 million which is an increase of 8.5 per cent compared to 6.5 million recorded during the same month in 2014, taking the average monthly traffic for the year to a record high of 6.5 million. It was the second time in the year after August when monthly traffic exceeded the 7 million mark.

Aircraft movements in 2015 reached 403,517, up 14.1 per cent compared to 353,507 movements recorded during 2014. Monthly aircraft movements in December totaled 35,575 compared to 33,595 movements during the same month in 2014, an increase of 5.9per cent.

During the year DXB welcomed new airlines including Air Canada from Toronto, Eurowings from Cologne and China Southern from Wuhan, among others. A total of 12 new passenger destinations were also added thanks to the ongoing network expansion of Dubai-based airlines flydubai and Emirates.

Spurred by Emirates’ network expansion and ongoing growth on routes to the region, North America topped the regional markets in terms of percentage growth in 2015 (+25 per cent), followed by the GCC (+15 per cent), and Asia (+12 per cent).

Despite the transfer of all pure cargo operators from DXB to Dubai World Central, cargo volumes remained relatively steady with 2.51 million tonnes of air freight passing through the airport during the year, up 3.4 per cent compared to 2.4 million tonnes recorded during 2014. Monthly freight volumes in December totalled 218,408 up 5 per cent compared to 207,618 recorded during the same month in 2014.